Howard Bauchner, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), is applying for a Midcareer Investigator Award in Patient-Oriented Research (K24). Dr. Bauchner completed his post-residency training as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation General Pediatric Academic Fellow at Yale-New Haven in 1986. He joined the faculty at BUSM that year, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1990 and Professor in 1997. Dr. Bauchner's career has been committed to conducting patient-oriented research, and mentoring fellows and faculty in general pediatrics. His own research has focused on randomized controlled trials, methodologic reviews, and therapeutic trials in the areas of sleep, painful procedures, inappropriate oral antibiotic use, and iron deficiency anemia. He has published 60 peer-reviewed articles, and over the past five years conducted six studies in the area of inappropriate oral antibiotic use. Currently, with support from GlaxoSmithKline, he is beginning a practice-based research project in which 12 practices will be randomized to information about the appropriate antibiotics therapy or appropriate diagnosis of acute otitis media (AOM). In this study, it is estimated that 3600 children less than three years of age will be enrolled. The goal is to determine if children with AOM treated with appropriate antibiotics do better than children treated with inappropriate antibiotics. With support from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, he is also conducting a randomized controlled trial that is focused on increasing the percentage of low-income and minority mothers who breastfeed their premature infants. In addition to his own research efforts, Dr. Bauchner is Project Director of an Institutional National Research Service Award and Faculty Development Program. With support from these two programs, four fellows have been in training each year for the past eight years. These fellows all require intensive mentoring and are conducting patient-oriented research. With support from this program, Dr. Bauchner will commit 50% effort to conducting patient-oriented research and mentoring. He will expand his mentoring efforts to include fellows and faculty in the Divisions of Pediatric Emergency Room Services, Child Development and Adolescent Medicine, and become a senior advisor to the CREST Program (K30) at BUSM. [unreadable] [unreadable]